Strivers Row — Kevin Baker

In the steamy summer of 1943, New York City's Harlem is a tinderbox awaiting a match, its black residents struggling determinedly for justice, respect, and survival. As a war rages overseas, another is brewing in the bustling streets of this community of smoky night spots and hot jazz clubs, overcrowded slum apartments and threadbare small businesses. And now a remarkable chance encounter has joined together the complex strands of two very different lives: Jonah Dove, a light-skinned minister from a prominent family, crushed by doubt and despair . . . and an eager young street hustler named Malcolm Little, who in later years is destined to change America as Malcolm X.